Low Road
The Low Road is a long Underdark route, known to certain dwarves, connecting Glen to the subterranean dwarf realm east of the Great Rift (see the map included with DWARVES DEEP). Rather than being a single long tunnel, the Low Road is a mental map of 'safe' passages known to certain dwarves, 'the best way through the maze' of natural and creature-made Underdark tunnels. The dwarves have constructed small, defensible strongholds along it (including, yes, one just 'below' Glen itself), and also crafted many small refuges (hiding-chambers with caches of food, drink, weapons, splints, ropes, and tools) 'on' the Low Road, but the long route is neither a clear and obvious one, nor an unchanging one. Drow and Underdark predators know that dwarves frequently travel north-south in this area of the Underdark, and are constantly attacking travellers they find and dwarf holds they discover-but it's wrong to assume that "a quite large underground-keep must be neccessary to secure glen" against drow surface incursions, because drow have their own ongoing wars and their own foes, too (including deep gnomes and some quite greedy mind-flayers), and are kept quite busy with daily patrols and strife. Moreover, many drow communities are controlled by powerful drow trading families who dislike the trade expenses and disruptions of large-scale warfare, and avoid or discourage it whenever possible (it's always easy for drow elders to allow hot-headed 'warbrands' to mount their own expeditions off into the Underdark, to either return victorious or -- far more often -- never be heard from again). 3. Therefore, Glen is one end of the Low Road, and Rimmitor (the DWARVES DEEP maps say "Rimmito" but this is a misprint) is the other, but there are many side-branches and various routes in between these two places. 4. Dwarves keep the names and locations of private family holds as secret as possible, so I can only say that as one travels south from Glen, the small communities of Fell's Axe, Adaern, Muranthor, and Uldel's Leap lie along the Low Road -- but precisely where they are, and the names of other places on the Road, remain mysterious. There's also an aboleth-governed subterranean lake (name not known to Volo) along the Road, that as it passes this lake winds through a maze of half-flooded tunnels to discourage drow and other attacks. 5. The phrase 'the Low Road' is becoming well-known among dwarves and gnomes all over the Heartlands, and starting to creep into human awareness (although, among humans, only a few well-connected travelling merchants properly know what and where the Road is; thanks to a fanciful ballad, many humans think it's a long, clear tunnel that runs deeper and deeper into the earth, that dying dwarves traverse in a pilgrimage to die before their gods in a vast cavern of bones). Dwarves and gnomes all know correctly WHAT the Low Road is general route, and some features, but only a few know the correct route of the Road (in other words, a handful of hardy and daring traders enrich themselves using it, and on rare occasions serve as 'guides' to all others). They are the only group to use it (though of course drow and other interests raid small portions of it), and most of them are fierce individualists, rather than any sort of organized power group (though most of them share a fellowship of mutual respect, and from time to time form small, usually short-lived alliances and pacts). 6. Around all surface connections (there are rumored to be at least two others along the Road, neither of them in settled areas or near any surface hamlet), dwarves tend to prepare many 'false door falling block' traps, teeter-totter-floor fall-shaft traps, and the like, so that only those 'in the know' can safely pass between the Underdark and the Realms Above by choosing exactly the right route. In addition, the dwarves maintain garrisons in rooms built with firing-ports and many crossbows. A defender in one of these chambers commands a field of fire down the length of a long stretch of passage, and can snatch up a succession of crossbows or fire large ballistae. 'Beneath' Glen are three of these chambers, commanding passages that wind so as to pass all of them -- and two of the chambers are equipped with levers that let fall ceiling-frames weighted with rocks and fitted with spikes, onto the heads of unwelcome travellers moving around a 'dogleg' of passage (the trap being the entire ceiling of the dogleg, ten feet wide by about seventy feet long, and therefore impossible to avoid). In addition, the defenders of Glen keep a pack of wardogs that they can release into the tunnels through doors only they control -- and take care to keep these menaces hungry. They also have at least one 'blindrun' side-passage that ends in a chamber where a fearsome monster (reports vary as to its nature, probably because slain monsters aren't always replaced by exactly the same sort of beast) is confined. 7. Traffic along the Low Road isn't as frequent as one might expect, but all manner of goods can be carried. Small, portable and yet valuable items (such as gems) are favoured over bulk goods, but food (especially to surface folk, in really hard winters, and Underfolk, when drow and monster attacks are really fierce) can often be more valuable than the rarest gem. 8. A meeting between antagonistic races along the Road would almost undoubtedly be a battle. Among dwarves, and between dwarves and gnomes, there's a "peace of the road" code, yes (though some dwarves probably only honour it if they think there might be witnesses to any attack on a hated rival), and some gnomes even operate a 'rescue and healing' service somewhere along the Road . . . but yes, hostile and rapacious races aren't welcome on the Road. Category:Roads Category:Locations in The Deep Wastes